NO. I ARCHITECTURE OF PUEBLO BONITO JUDD 35 



their contents and vacated. This fact might be interpreted as evi- 

 dence of internecine strife but post-abandonment fires and the plun- 

 dering of eight Old Bonitian burial rooms were not the work of 

 neighbors. There are those who argue that harassment from nomadic 

 groups rather than drought or impoverished soil initiated the 

 Pueblo III exodus from the San Juan drainage, including Chaco 

 Canyon. Others argue as convincingly that intramural quarreling, 

 as happened at Oraibe in 1906, could have spurred abandonment of 

 the northern mesas and valleys. Together internecine strife, or ex- 

 ternal harassment, plus droughts and impoverished soil would have 

 proved a combination no superstitious Pueblo farmer could withstand. 

 During our study of Bonitian architecture we collected portions 

 of 97 constructional timbers — not all we might have collected, as 

 we know in restrospect, but what seemed at the time as an adequate 

 selection of those we happened upon. The science of dendrochro- 

 nology has advanced since its crude beginnings at Pueblo Bonito in 

 1922, and the samples we took for Dr. Douglass will reveal more 

 than their dates as research upon them continues at the University 

 of Arizona. Two former Douglass students, Terah R. Smiley and 

 Bryant Bannister, have recently reviewed our 97 specimens, here 

 listed by their original field number (the JPB numbers of Douglass 

 publications), source, and masonry type and have revised several ter- 

 minal dates previously announced. 



TREE-RING DATES FROM PUEBLO BONITO 



